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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27429649">I'll Crawl Home to Him</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaming_molotov/pseuds/flaming_molotov'>flaming_molotov</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Dean Winchester Needs to Use Actual Words, Dean Winchester is Bad at Feelings, Fluff, Harmful Language, Love Confessions, M/M, One Shot, POV Dean Winchester, The Empty, and he does, he's trying ok, post 15x18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 00:41:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,159</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27429649</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaming_molotov/pseuds/flaming_molotov</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> The floor is black and glossy, but no shadows or reflections are cast over it, it’s eerie. Despite his initial fears, he can’t help the urgency bubbling up inside, the tremble in his hands and his shortness of breath, he is here for one reason and one reason only: Cas. The thought sparks something akin to desperation, he succumbs to it. <i></i></i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Dean goes to the Empty to find Cas</i>
  </i>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>139</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I'll Crawl Home to Him</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>so, after 15x18 i've realized people have a lot of mixed emotions about it, I for one, despite how gut-wrenching it was to see Cas being taken away, loved every second of his speech and think that dean's reaction, minding the script and dean himself, it's fitting. neverthless, i think it's far from the end of the deancas story. i hope you like this one-shot, it was living rent free in my brain and i just needed to get it out.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There’s a door.</p><p>And Dean wonders absent-mindedly why the hell does the Empty, the one that engulfed Cas in nothing but darkness and wrenched him away, have a door that leads you to it?</p><p>Nevertheless, he studies it with the kind of cautiousness that is ignited by dread, the kind that you feel pricking under your skin, after all, he has no clue what to expect from the other side. It’s temporary, move, he thinks. His hand falls over the knob, the door, lush and dark, a velvety aspect to it, is nothing but menacing. He twists the knob and pushes it slowly, and there right in front of his eyes is nothing but darkness. It’s not that the place is dim or poorly lit, it’s just... dark. The floor is black and glossy, but no shadows or reflections are cast over it, it’s eerie. Despite his initial fears, he can’t help the urgency bubbling up inside, the tremble in his hands and his shortness of breath, he is here for one reason and one reason only: Cas. The thought sparks something akin to desperation, he succumbs to it.</p><p>“Cas?”, he shouts and despite of its width, there’s no echo following suit</p><p>“Cas?!”, he shouts again, fight instead or flight kicking in</p><p>
  <i> I’m running out of time, Dean reminds himself <i></i></i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>He scours the place, but how can you scour a place that’s emptiness itself? He walks and walks and walks and sees nothing. Hears nothing. Nothing at all and it’s terrifying. He feels the last thread of his sanity slipping away. Desperation, ugly, needy, clawing its way up his throat and for a split second he isn’t breathing.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>
      <i> I’m running out of time <i></i></i>
    </i>
  </i>
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    <i>
      <i>
        <i>Surrounding him, darkness. And the thing about the dark that surrounds him that is so different from the white that encircled him during his short-lived experience in a mental institution is that instead of feeling psychotic, feeling the walls moving, closing in, it feels like the Empty is spreading. It expands, larger and larger like a rapidly growing cancer, deadly. His eyes dart all across his vicinity, dizziness settling in quickly, he’s hyperventilating he’s sure of it. So he closes his eyes. After striding around, feeling like he was merely pacing back and forth, he allows the only darkness surrounding him to come from within, so he shuts his eyes and takes a steadying breath.</i>
      </i>
    </i>
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</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>
      <i>
        <i>
          <i> The spell ain’t gonna hold me here forever <i></i></i>
        </i>
      </i>
    </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
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    <i>
      <i>
        <i>
          <i>
            <i>With his vision being obstructed, he thinks of Castiel. Images flood him, threatening to drown him. He sees him; self-sacrificial, selfless, dumb fucking martyr Castiel. Castiel that in a heartbeat put himself in the frontline of fire and kept Dean behind him once more. Castiel who he is utterly unworthy of. Castiel who saved him again. Castiel who he is in love with, and who, against all odds, loves him out of seven billion humans, uncountable creatures and a few angels. Cas whose ability to love is immense, Cas who the world doesn’t deserve and neither does he. A single tear streams down his face before he can even acknowledge it at all. He closes his eyes impossibly tight and he prays.</i>
          </i>
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    </i>
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        <i>
          <i>
            <i>He’s done it before, be it out of desperation or sheer longing, but somehow it feels different, since this isn’t a prayer at all, it’s a <i> plea. <i> A plea for Cas to wake up, snap out of it. A plea for him to hear him, to awoke, to come to him. He never yearned to hear his name in Cas’s voice as he does right now. The plea is embedded in <i> please, Cas <i> and <i> I love you. <i> He sobs, all snot and incessant tears and when he finally feels ready he opens his eyes and, as land to a drifter at sea, he sees him, even though he seems to be miles away.</i></i></i></i></i></i></i>
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                        <i>So Dean runs. He sees the beige form from afar and the closer he gets it shapes itself more and more like his estranged angel. Once there are mere inches between his boots and the unmoving body, Dean, like a devoted christian would before such angelic creature, drops to his knees and falls to the ground with a thump. And for a minute there finds himself too stunned to move, until he breaks out of his stupor and places Castiel’s head over his thighs, wavering hands carding through his hair with immense relief and gut-wrenching despair. With tears still falling and dripping onto his angel’s cheeks he finally speaks:</i>
                      </i>
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                      <i>
                        <i>“I’m so sorry”, voice wobbly and desperate, “I’m so, so sorry, Cas”, he sniffles, drying his face in the crook of his elbow aggressively, “I didn’t even see it, I should’ve seen it - your deal - I should’ve saved you, I should’ve have done something, anything. Fuck, I’m so sorry. About everything else too. Please come back to me. I know I don’t deserve you”, he laughs, wet and bitter, “I know I fuck up everything I touch. But you- You make me better. All the shit, the bad stuff, you make it better. I need you, Cas. Please. I lo-“, <i> God <i> he can’t even bring himself to say it, he’s such a fucking pussy. Looking at Castiel’s lifeless face, closed eyes though it’s not peace that it entails, it’s pain, the angel is frowning and on everything Dean is, all he has, which isn’t much, he wishes he could turn back time. He wishes it was him, him that succumbed to the Nothingness. Him frowning and lifeless, not Cas.</i></i></i>
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                            <i>Losing him again is something Dean could’ve never foretell and yet here he is. Cas will always be ripped away from him, regardless of God or any entity whatsoever. Regardless of what Dean needs; even after seeing Cas perform the utmost selfless act a person could ever subject themselves to and now staring at his still body, Dean is pondering what he needs because he is selfish. And what he ever needed since Cas said he saved him from an endless torture in Hell, <i> no <i> what he <i> needs <i> is for Cas to stay. He needs Cas to stay by his side and never, ever leave because the thing is whether alive or dead, Cas isn’t the oxygen he breathes, in a rational level he acknowledges he doesn’t need Cas to survive. But he wants to, he wants to like the need of breathing. He loves Castiel and it pours all out him at this very moment because like his angel, he allows himself to. Because happiness isn’t in having, is in saying it. So he says it like those words could ever covey what he feels, as they could extend to the grandiosity that is his love for Castiel, as though they stretch through the Empty, further into Heaven and Hell, and engulf the whole Universe; he says it like he and Castiel are the atoms that kick-start the Universe.</i></i></i></i></i>
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                                    <i>He says: “I love you”</i>
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                                  <i>
                                    <i>And Castiel opens his eyes</i>
                                  </i>
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</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i hope you liked it<br/>let me know what you think! <br/>i'm on tumblr @happinessdean (it's a temporary change but i couldn't resist)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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